Ghost
You keep returning and I can’t say why.
I wake in the shrouded room and lie still for hours.
Sometimes you speak through the siding’s wind rattle,
in the rasping shingles or the gutter’s drain.
But who interprets these phrases?
No friend. No dictionary.
The dog barks at nothing and chases his tail
to exhaustion. Unlike sound,
light cannot penetrate these windows.
Perhaps the answer lies in the page’s hollow, between
words, or at the free end of a kite’s anchor,
wedged within clouds, echoing
like a cough in a decade’s breath
hammering down after a long illness.
I question afterlife, but dying continues.
This first appeared in Shadowtrain.
O at the Edges 
damn fine job, sir
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Thank you very much!
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Your experiential truth is a magnificent and precious ontological wonder to behold!
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Thank you, ma’am. It’s mostly an oddity…
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Nice
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Thank you!
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Ah, the search for answers unleashes a barrage of questions …! Tricky to grasp that free end of a kite’s anchor – but now the urge to try …
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My kites always feel weighted down, even when they’re not.
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Nothing replenishes a spirit as watching a kite waggle free of his earthly hook and waft on lower upper winds free of our ‘tanglements.
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I have to agree with you on that!
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Didn’t realize the above reply-comment would negate what herein was intended to be effusive praise. Reprise? Sure. Really liked the imagery and composition and clever line ends and hops. “…words, or at the free end of a kite’s anchor” particularly fine. A dog “…chases his tail/ to exhaustion” another well-crafted example. Then in fourth or fifth read I noticed the two ocher-hued shake shingles on that steeply-slanted dormered roof. The first’s windows…what is it? Two images looking out or a reflection in the clouds looking for a lost kite? Bob, a fine time was had by this reader. Thanks.
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And I must belabor the point: what was that weather-beaten shake tile doing one full course off the two rusty-colored shakes? We humans and our hunts for meanings and ghosts…
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Another mystery we’ll never solve!
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The one two courses below the ocher shingles, weather b(e?)aten must hold a trove of treasure-stories. Or at least an haiku?
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So pleased you enjoyed it! Thank you.
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My pleasure as well: well-crafted piece – poetry, ceramics, photography, carrot salad, all grist for the mind.
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great imagery in this and love the solitude as well.
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Beautiful poem. Well done. Anand Bose from Kerala
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Thank you, Anand.
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Like your Ghost!
Similar tales on WhatsReallyUp: Things Not to Conjure Up!
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Thank you very much.
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